Bunbury cafe gets green machine

Natural Temptation Cafe owner Annie Malone shows off the result of the eatery’s new composting machine. ORGANIC waste from the preparation of food in cafes’ and restaurants can quickly get out of control – but one Bunbury eatery has taken the disposal of its yearly 15,000 kilograms of leftovers into its own hands.

Natural Temptation Cafe recently installed ‘Greta de Garbo’, a self-contained composting machine which works around the clock to process about 90 per cent of the cafes’ waste.

Using a combination of heat, agitation, airflow and organic starters, the machine has meant staff no longer need to fill a 1100 litre bin each week.

Owner Annie Malone told business the idea came about after she and her staff began feeling bad for not reusing the large quantities organic waste produced through food preparation.

“I thought ‘I have to research and see if we can do our own composting on site’,” Ms Malone said.

She contacted Closed Loop Environmental Solutions, a company which engineers machines to divert waste from landfill.

“From the type of Cafe that we are, to the moral side of trying to make yourself sustainable we thought this could be the first step in saving stuff from going into landfill.”

A portion of the compost produced by Greta is used on herbs and vegetables used in food sold at the cafe.

Ms Malone said her staff had become more conscious of what waste they were producing in the cooking process.

“We thought ‘hey do we really need to use all this?’ It has been a general rethink of how we do business, what products we buy and how many things come in boxes,” she said.

She hoped her cafe’s example would inspire others in Bunbury to self-compost.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.